Last week, someone 20 years younger than I am came to me for marriage advice. ME. None of her close friends are married, and she didn’t feel comfortable going to her mom with the nitty gritty ups and downs of her marriage. I, in my attempt to seem like the sage married lady she thinks I am, held in my snort of laughter about being seen as an expert, and asked for all the details. 

Me! A marriage expert! Talk about imposter syndrome. My one little, epic journey of a, like no one else’s, experience with marriage … now qualifies me to advise about it? Turns out, I guess it kind of sort of does?

Marriage advice is like parenting advice, though: no marriage is the same, just like no child is the same. What I had to offer her were some hard-learned tips and 20 years of hindsight to give her a little perspective, all with a hearty dose of, “but of course, you know your relationship the best, and you need to follow your gut.”

Just like with parenting, you filter all of the advice and use what works for you and your kid or spouse and ignore all the rest. This is why I never read parenting or marriage “how to” or advice books, and read all parenting and marriage memoirs with one eye squinted ~ there is always a sense of comparison and weighing whether or not I’m doing it right compared to … some random author? What the hell do they know about my life?

Here are the broad strokes of my gentle mentoring offered alongside “but what the hell do I know???” ….